For quite a bit of time the Cold War has captivated my mind. I have been determined to immerse myself in the historical context of the time, the want to do so was seeded by my father at a young age, his military experience and pure fascination for military history was pushed onto my impressionable mind. I have heard many stories, learned about many people, and have ‘experienced’ many important events that happened during the fearful decades through the documentation of the time. The stories of the people who experienced the different aspects of the Cold War are what really captures me. Their victory over the fear and uncertainty that filled the time are inspiring and memorable. This time holds many secrets that are important to understand the mindset of the people, so I will try what I can to learn it all.

The Cold War is largely mysterious, the constant spying and infiltration of governments between the undeclared combatants created an untrusting and fearful environment in the countries. However, with this hostile relationship between the countries new technology was of great importance to them. Most of the technology that we use and are dependent on today was derived from this strenuous time, cell phones, computers, space ships etc. were birthed from the technological race that happened between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.

When I looked at this time period for my project I knew I was coming into it with some knowledge about various conflicts and events that made up the time, mainly relating to the space race/arms race that lead to CIA and KGB spying. However this time entails much more than that, two world powers of democracy and communism strived to undermine one another and did so through revealing secrets and releasing propaganda that shone each other in a dark light. This competitive mindset between the two lead to large amounts of resources being poured into wars that were fought in countries that had little effect or relevance to the two powers. The countries were left in ruin or close to because of the aggression and opposition the Soviet Union and U.S. had with each other.,Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, Egypt, Afghanistan. All these countries were taken advantage of so the these superpowers were able to duel it out without having to fight on their own soil. Still today you can see the effects of the wars and conflict.

One big thing that has been lightly tugging at me to learn about is one of the biggest yet forgotten event of the Cold War, the Korean war. Korea is divided still to this day with a seemingly continuous hatred and intensity between the two but how did such aggression develop? When and how did the country fall into the hands of a dictatorship? And Lastly how could such a war be forgotten?

The wars of communism vs democracy that were created all over the world have been talked about and debated for decades after they occurred. However a war that killed a significant amount on both sides slipped through, were there other wars and conflicts that were hidden from common knowledge? These very questions are what are leading me to pursue this topic and understand why such a war was started and the effects during and after the fact. I don't wish to know who fired the first shot I wish to know why they did so and their plans after doing so.